The NELMSC is pleased to name Bill Paine as our 2020 Coach of the Year. Coach of the Year recognizes an NELMSC swimming coach who has demonstrated outstanding coaching qualities, club development, and overall NELMSC participation during the preceding year and over the coach's career with their club.

As head coach of Tech Masters Swimming, Bill runs an astonishing 14 practices per week out of MIT’s Zesiger Center. He excels at writing workouts that engage and challenge each of the approximately 100 Tech Masters swimmers who vary widely in age, ability, experience, and goals. He cares deeply about each individual, and his friendly poolside manner has built a fun, welcoming community. Outside of MIT, Bill volunteers annually at Swim Across America Boston Harbor, NELMSC stroke clinics, and generally loves to help people in his community. One swimmer summed it up simply: “I don't think you could find another coach as dedicated to coaching as Bill.”

Thank you, Bill, for all you do!

Here’s what a few of Bill’s swimmers have to say about him:

• “I have been swimming with Bill for 10 and a half years, joining the Masters team he coaches at MIT's Zesiger Center in my second year of graduate school at MIT, and continuing through all my time as a graduate student and into my professional career. Bill has created a wonderful atmosphere at our pool and in our Masters team—fun, but hardworking, supportive and caring, and dedicated to helping the swimmers on the team get what they need to out of his program. He tirelessly shows up to coach 14 practices a week. Three days a week, he is at the pool at 6:15 am and leaves the deck for the last time at 8:30 pm after having guided three practices. He has an innate knack for determining the intervals that are possible if you push yourself, and is equally talented at challenging the fast swimmers on our team (some with Olympic Trials experience) as he is at giving stroke tips to beginners, for whom completing a whole practice might be daunting.”

• “I’ve swum with a number of different Masters teams, but Coach Bill’s workouts are the ones written with the most intelligence. He knows our individual pace times better than we do; within each workout, he caters to the mixed needs of fitness swimmers, triathletes and leisure swimmers and he understands the breadth of ages within a Masters group—that you have everyone from 18 year olds to 80 year olds and he makes it work. And even if any coach can write a workout, not every coach can provide what Bill provides to us—he remembers all of our kids’ names, he mans the grill at our annual cookout and he makes all of our lives better, both in the pool and out. “

• “I have been swimming Masters for the past 22 years on a few different teams. For the past four and a half I have been with Tech, and Bill has been my coach the entire time. Bill is an unusual and remarkably effective coach for several reasons. First is that he makes a great effort to get to know each swimmer, regardless of ability, to ascertain their specific goals and their workout style. We have a relatively large team and only a few of us are committed to competing but all of us have a commitment to working out in our own unique manner. Triathletes and competitive non-freestyle swimmers such as myself do not always seek the same kind of workout and these differing goals can create frictions within the lane or workout session. Bill takes stock of who is swimming in each lane and works accordingly.

• “Bill’s main talent is in creating a workout that consistently challenges me. It seems that no two workouts are the same and the variety from day to day makes the workout experience fresh and stimulating.”

• “Bill has been my coach for 14 years. He has coached some swimmers for longer. People stay with Bill! People love Bill! He attracts new swimmers every session; he attracts old swimmers, young swimmers, fast swimmers, thin swimmers, fat swimmers. He gives us Peeps at Easter. He gives us encouragement. He believes in swimming. He's funny. If you don't want to swim hard, you don't have to. If you don't want to swim at all, you can ask him what's going on in his life and sit back and chill. He cares. About everyone. About how people are doing in their personal lives. Their work lives. Their swim lives. He promotes a "level playing field." In the pool, we are swimmers together. He expects cooperation and respect from us for each other and for him. We get respect; he gets respect.”

• “Coach Bill is not just part of our team, but he impacts the wider community. When one of the lifeguards at our pool suffered a medical emergency at his home, Coach Bill was the person he called to take him to the hospital. When a swimmer on the Charles River Aquatics Masters team communicated that she had been diagnosed with cancer, Coach Bill immediately put himself on her call list, to be available for driving and errands. The clerk who hands out towels at the front desk once remarked to me: ‘Does Bill Paine understand this community he has created?’”

• “Bill is a fixture on the MIT pool deck, creating goodwill between our program, the staff, rec swimmers and others who use the pool, of all ages ranging from kids to older swimmers. His lively sense of humor and friendly demeanor make our program a welcoming one for swimmers of any level of experience and skill. We have triathletes, open water swimmers, meet swimmers, and many fitness swimmers who all feel equally at home on our team thanks to Bill's terrific leadership and coaching. Many people not affiliated with MIT come to swim with us not only to enjoy our lovely pool, but because they enjoy the varied workouts (even the dreaded "Distance Wednesday") and the camaraderie that Bill provides.”

• “Bill helps anyone who needs help with anything. Personal life stuff, he's your guy. Swimming technique, he's your guy. Wanting to sneak-change the intervals in your lane because you think they are too fast? He's NOT your guy! He's friendly, welcoming to all.”